My everyday fight to control diabetes through healthy habits and alot of sweat!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The Mysterious Case of Honey Turkey & Other Things I Learned Last Week

My lunchtime basal & bolus was a mystery last week. Although I was eating the same thing for lunch that I had been eating nearly every day since my diagnosis (or so I thought) my carb ratio and/ or basal rate wasn't keeping my blood sugars out of the danger zone. Each day about an hour and 10 minutes after eating I would witness my blood sugars climbing higher and higher above 200, then a headache would ensue and that great feeling of an upset stomach would happen. I worried that I'd never again be able to enjoy a turkey sandwich!

Yesterday I went to Jeffery's at the Essex St. Market where I normally buy my turkey for the week. I asked the guy behind the counter for Boar's Head Oven Gold Turkey (the same turkey I thought I had gotten last week). Counter Man points to the maple honey turkey to which I say no, the other one. Then lightning struck, an epiphany hit me, last week the edges of my turkey were brown not gold!!!! The guy made the SAME GOD DAMN MOTHER FING MISTAKE LAST FING WEEK AND F'D UP MY FING LUNCH TIME BLOOD SUGAR - FREAKING BASTARD!!!!!! I now know I must keep my eye on Counter Man or instill the fear of the angry diabetic in him; it is amazing how assuming we are eating one thing when we are in fact eating a similar but not identical product can destroy our blood sugars. I can't even picture what having a food allergy must be like. Counter Man is lucky that the deli case at Jeffery's is 5 feet high, any shorter and he would have easily wound up in the pile of bananas behind me :).

My other lesson came at the pool last week. I set out for a hard core 3500 meter swim workout. About 2000 or 2500 meters into the swim I started to feel a bit weird and decided it was time to test. If I happen to pass out on my bike or while I'm running I figure someone will eventually find me (in Manhattan someone is never that far away) but I'm terrified of passing out from a low while swimming. Perhaps it's because there are maybe a handful of people at my pool who do more than doggy paddle or the fact that the lifeguard has no teeth but something about having a seizure in a pool doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Therefore, I'm a bit more cautious during my swim workouts than with any other discipline. So I climb out of the pool and had thought I dried off pretty well. As I shakily open my vile of test strips a huge drop of water falls from my hair right into the canister!!!!!!! I had combined 2 one touch ultra viles into one before I left for my swim so I just ruined 50 test strips!!! Yesterday when I went swimming I only brought 10 test strips to the pool with me.

Isn't it funny. They think one little thing like that can't really affect anyone. But it does. Your lunchtime blood sugars last week prove it. It's hard not to get frustrated over that. And sorry to hear about the test strips. They are way to expensive to go for a swim! :)

I'm with Scott. Mouth to mouth with a toothless lifeguard gives me the shivers (and not good ones).

Sorry to hear about the food mixup. This is the reason why I don't buy soda when I'm out. It's way too easy for someone to give me full strength when I've asked for diet. And my sense of taste isn't good enough to distinguish between the two.